Friday, June 01, 2007

The one call you hate to get

11:34 am - the phone rings at home. I let the machine pick up and I hear "Mom, Mom, pick up the phone right away" hello? "Mom, we're on lock down." click. that's all. Now how in the heck am I supposed to get my heartbeat back to a normal rhythm. geez.

11:49 am - H texts that there's a man with a gun. I feel sick to my stomach

11:50 am - I call my sister. We decide not to call our mother, who is a block away and can hear the helicopters as well.

Noon - I call my neighbor who always is listening to the police scanner, he confirms that there is someone with a gun.

12:10 pm - H texts "can you hear the sirens?" I can, we are only 3 blocks from the high school. I can also hear several helicopters overhead.

12:11 pm - I get a breaking news email from ch. 7 telling me about the situation at the high school. I realize that I have switched into the calming breathing exercises I learned in a lamaze class 16 1/2 years ago.

12:35 pm - I get a call from H telling me that they have the person.

This was one of the worst hours of my life. I know how lucky I am that I was only scared for a while and that nothing worse happened. I am very grateful.

postscript: 2:30 pm, I leave a message for my mother to tell her about the whole gun incident and how we decided to not tell her about it as it was happening.

6:05 pm - still waiting to find out if I'm grounded.

2 comments:

mary said...

I heard about it from another Mom friend of mine. She was on a field trip with her younger child, and got the call while on the bus. Yikes! Luckily, she missed the call, and by the time she picked up the message, it was all over. Whew! I don't wish that on any parent. Hope you recover okay.

mehitabel said...

Scary day! I read about it in the paper, and all I could think about was how awful the whole thing would be for the kids and the parents. Luckily it ended well and at least you know that the school can and will act decisively!